[ExI] A Small Request [was Re: Impressive book: Farewell to Alms]

Fred C. Moulton moulton at moulton.com
Thu Feb 7 03:00:13 UTC 2008


On Tue, 2008-02-05 at 17:29 +0000, someone wrote:
> A Google search indicates that Libertarians are coming out in support
> of this book as providing support for  their claim that 'the poor
> deserve to be poor'. 

Can we please raise the level of discourse here?  The unqualified
statement about 'Libertarians' as a group is just not useful.  First not
all Libertarians have commented on the book, in fact there not all
Libertarians have even read it.  And to say that the claim that 'the
poor deserve to be poor' is part of the Libertarian philosophy is just
plain false.

These inaccuracies and innuendos do not help the quality of the list.  I
am concerned that they will just lead to hostility and resentments which
can spill over into a flame war.  I think that making these kinds of
statements about any group (Socialist, Green, Conservative or whatever)
do not improve the quality of the list.

I have been rather busy with work recently and have not time to read all
of the recent posts but I did see this one.  So my request is that we
try to avoid posts which are full of overly broad disparaging inferences
and inaccurate representations.

Thank you

Fred





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